Wow, marvelous stuff...really stunning seeing how it went from the construction stage to the finished product. How much time did you spent on designing the space before the construction begins? And is this the first time you have done a project of this scale?

And how did you get some of Craig Mullin's paintings printed in wall-mounting sizes? I wasn't aware he sells them? inquisitive mind must know!

zHowie - yeah, that last photo made me chuckle. that must have been one heck of a party

looks wonderful, looks like a lot of thought went into creating your own utopia. i enjoyed the contruction photos, especially the last one

Was it hard to imagine it would come together during the construction process?

Thanks! The place is definitely very low-key and we're not rich by any means, so it's really just simple construction on a modest budget.

I was pretty confident during the whole process, since I've been designing living space on paper for many years now (when I did comic books, concept art, and the numerous times when I had to move around). I knew exactly what I wanted in my head, and I simply just drew/painted/collaged it for the contractors to see. I did mockups of how the spaces should look when finished, including custom-built furniture and with all the pictures virtually hung so I could see if they matched the spaces well. I'd take photos during every construction phase and then throw them into Photoshop and do additional mockups to see how the next stage should look.

Synnical wrote:

Wow, marvelous stuff...really stunning seeing how it went from the construction stage to the finished product. How much time did you spent on designing the space before the construction begins? And is this the first time you have done a project of this scale?

And how did you get some of Craig Mullin's paintings printed in wall-mounting sizes? I wasn't aware he sells them? inquisitive mind must know!

zHowie - yeah, that last photo made me chuckle. that must have been one heck of a party

I had never done this kind of thing before (although Elena did with her previous home before we met). Designing the home was relatively easy, as we simply let our living habits dictate the design. We'd walk around the bare concrete shell and try to imagine where everything should be, where to erect walls, where to put the stairs, where to put custom shelves...etc. It was design as we go, so not much time was spent just on designing. The studio on the other hand took extensive research and design. I did tons of sketches, diagrams, mockups...etc because I needed the studio to sound perfect and very functional. I started researching as early as a year before construction, and kept on researching throughout the construction (reading books on studio design/construction, talking to experts...etc).

The prints--Some of them are prints we purchased, some are up-scaled high resolution scans/photos I took from the numerous art books I have, and some were downloaded from online (with carefully up-scaling). The up-scaled ones range from excellent quality (almost like a commercial print) to good enough for displaying at a distance (meaning you're not supposed to put your nose up to it). I spent two weeks scanning, up-scaling, tweaking/touching up, and supervising the printing process. Overall, one week was spent scanning/tweaking/touching up the prints (for example if a painting was printed on facing pages, I'd have to carefully touch up the middle joining sections by consulting various references I could find). Then another week at the printing facility (I bought my own setup there because I was not happy with theirs).

Those contractors on the floor--they were taking their daily afternoon nap. It's a weird tradition here--that you "officially" have two hours of rest time during lunch, and it's even illegal to be doing construction during that time because your neighbors won't be able to take their afternoon nap.

can i ask who the artist is to the right of your studio door? the painting of the woman in the field. looks like you have a few pieces by the same one. i recognize it but can't place the name. waterhouse?

your home looks wonderful btw. the studio in particular is drool worthy.

So you have a music studio in an apartment? How did you go about ensuring that no sound leaked to the adjoining apartments? That seems like it would be pretty hard to do._________________Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

Any of you that end up somewhere in the Fujian province are welcome to visit. Hey Shizo, when you hell you comin' down from Beijing to visit?

Sumaleth wrote:

So you have a music studio in an apartment? How did you go about ensuring that no sound leaked to the adjoining apartments? That seems like it would be pretty hard to do.

I originally had the detailed plans all finished to do a room-in-a-room design, where all 4 walls and ceiling/floor will be detached from the entire original structure, connected only by shock-absorbing material like wall braces, anti-vibration hangers/pucks, and neoprene pads (that's why it took so long to research and design--I needed to learn about structural engineering and practices, and I needed confirmation that my design won't end up killing us in real life in an earthquake or fire). Then about a week before I was going to place orders for all the material, I came to the realization that although the construction will work, I won't be happy because the space will be too small. So I abandoned that plan and decided to just do acoustic treatment, although I did reinforce the ceiling with additional sound isolation because I have neighbors upstairs. We luckily don't have neighbors next to us (except across the hall), and downstairs from me is our own kitchen.

I was a little nervous when we moved in, because I had to deal with hypersensitive neighbors before, and the whole reason for me to build a studio is so I don't ever have to deal with that again. Anyway, the windows and doors in the studio are double layered for sound isolation, so when they're closed, you can barely hear the music inside, even if I'm blasting at near 100 db (which I never do anyway. I monitor at average of 85 db). Now, structurally transmitted sound I'm not sure about, but we haven't heard any complaints so far and I do make a rukus as late as midnight sometimes. I'm assuming my ceiling reinforcement worked. I could go say hi upstairs and do a little experiment to see if they can hear me, but I'm afraid if I bring the issue up, they'll start to concentrate to try to hear music at night. Sometimes keeping your mouth shut is best.

Last edited by Lunatique on Tue Jan 13, 2009 4:42 am; edited 1 time in total

hey Lunatique, it's interesting to hear how things all come together in your mind, as well as in reality. I too would be nervous building a sound studio within an apartment complex, but I am glad that things are working out for the moment.

So the Mullin painting, like that mickey mouse girl in the crowd, was purchased privately? because I've only seen very small amount of his work actually published, and they were not full page print which can be rescanned for larger output.

No, that one was just the same hi-res jpeg he's posted online in the past. I simply up-scaled it, and the result is decent, but not perfect. It works fine since his brushwork in it are mostly quite impressionistic anyway, and the details in the background actually held up pretty well.